TECHNOS

August 21, 2008

TECHNOS QUARTERLY Spring 2002 Vol. 11 No. 1

I'm Doing Better But Feeling Worse: Serendipity, Unintended Consequences, and I.T.

By Frank W. Connolly

Little did this I.T. expert imagine that there's a downside to the wonderful world of information technology on campus.

“Serendipity,” that's what we call it when we like the surprise engendered by change. When we don't like it, we call it “unintended consequences.” In both cases the outcomes are unplanned and thus unexpected. Such unanticipated outcomes are endemic to all planning, and Information Technology, or I.T., is no exception. The problem is that I.T. so permeates our institutions that the unanticipated outcomes have a significant impact throughout organizations in ways both obvious and subtle.

In Why Things Bite Back, Edward Tenner borrows a phrase from the medical profession that accurately describes my situation: “Doing better but feeling worse.” The idea is that by objective measures the patient is medically improved, but on the patient's own subjective scale she feels her health is deteriorating further. That pretty much sums up my condition as a college professor. I joined the ranks of academia many years ago. Most of my 30+ years have been spent teaching, with seven years spent in administration, as the Director of Academic Computing at American University. I've been back in the classroom for the last six years, and find I'm doing better but feeling worse. Teaching has become more challenging and interesting as I integrate technology into my classes (doing better) and simultaneously less satisfying as I find my relationships with students deteriorating (feeling worse).

“Techies” at the Bleeding Edge

There is some irony in my situation because during my years as an administrator I laid the foundation of my current discontent. The crux of both the better and worse is technology, specifically the wide area network that ties this academic community together.

For the most part, the doing better aspects were anticipated and planned. In my role as Director of Academic Computing, I was one of the administrators central to planning, designing, and building our wired campus. Every office, classroom, and residence hall room was to be connected to our campus network, and it is. Every faculty member was to have the ability to use Internet resources as integral parts of their classes and research, and they can. Every student was to be able to communicate with teachers electronically and access research materials that would otherwise be impossible for the college to provide, and they do. The effort was spearheaded by the technical leaders on campus: I.T. staff and faculty and administrators who were early adopters or heavy users of technology. All were comfortable at or near the bleeding edge.

The objectives of our plans were achieved within budget and on time, to great celebration and progress on campus. But there were and are some unexpected outcomes as well, some of which are only coming to light years later.

Serendipity

An example of serendipity occurred recently when I came down with the flu. At 6:30 in the morning I posted the following email message to the students in my 9:00 a.m. class:

Due to the flu, I'm not able to make class today. Instead you'll find the lecture slides and notes online. After reviewing them, please submit your questions and comments to the class bulletin board. I'll respond to any questions posted there this evening. Other members of class are encouraged to offer assistance in answering questions as well. Any major misunderstanding or confusion we'll deal with next class.

The test will be held next class as scheduled.

Prof. C.

When we were planning the network, I never thought about this possibility. Not only am I able to easily send time-sensitive messages to my students, but I can also provide them with material and assignments when I unexpectedly can't make it to class. When planning the network, we figured many faculty, myself included, would offer courses that were completely online, and many of us have done so. We also figured many would use these resources to supplement regular classes and even substitute for instructors for a class or two when they were off at a conference, a planned function that took them away from campus. We anticipated that students who missed a class would take advantage of online material to catch up, or perhaps as review for exams. But here I was teaching a course for the third time, with lots of material already online, when the unexpected occurred. I hadn't anticipated this alternative, but necessity and the flu are the mothers of invention, so my students progressed without me. The network meant that not only could students make up for missed classes, so could I.

Unintended Consequences

The concept of unanticipated consequences has a long history, even to point of being referred to as the Law of Unintended Consequences. The Law is:

Regardless of the intent of a plan or decision, upon implementation unexpected consequences will occur and those consequences will usually be bad.

Like the law of gravity, the Law of Unintended Consequences is applicable to all endeavors — scientific, political, academic, economic, technologic. In my case the unintended consequences of our wired campus have been subtle, creeping in unnoticed until I began reflecting on the “feeling worse” aspects of my situation.

It was 4:15 on a typical Tuesday afternoon. For the previous three hours of my office hours no one had come to see me. My office hours are publicly posted on bulletin boards, both electronic and cork, included in my course syllabi, and announced to students in class. But no one came. Then I realized that this trend had become the norm, not an exception. I used to have students in my office all the time. But now students rarely came. Outside of class, my interactions with students evolved to where now it is almost exclusively via email. It was then I realized that “feeling worse” was an unanticipated consequence of an effort I helped implement in my life as an administrator.

Changed Behavior

A great part of my satisfaction in teaching comes from personal interactions with students. Face to face, I not only answer their questions or clarify a concept, but I can get to know them: where they are from; what they hope to do after graduation; the team they rooted for in the Super Bowl; how their father, who had a heart attack, is doing. Like other facets of technology, email has not changed either the students or my nature, but it has changed our behavior. The personal communication I miss has a social aspect to it. It is far richer than the task-oriented interactions needed to answer an email inquiry of when an assignment is due. Certainly there is content exchanged in a personal interaction, but it is done in a rich soup of presence, the kind needed to establish a personal relationship.

Like other facets of technology, email has not changed either the students or my nature, but it has changed our behavior. The personal communication I miss has a social aspect to it.

Email correspondence with my students increases the frequency of our interactions, but not the quality. It enables task-oriented interchanges of information, but eliminates the richness associated with face-to-face communication. In If It's Broken You Can Fix It, Tom Jones points out that when two people meet face to face, it is impossible not to communicate. The very presence of multiple persons carries meaning, and their demeanor transmits messages even if they would prefer it did not. Empirically I know from years of reading students' expressions in class that this is true. Similarly, I assume students can tell by my facial expressions and body language my comfort level with a particular topic.

Email is a powerful tool, but it has reduced my out-of-class interactions with students to meerly task-oriented communication.

On that Tuesday afternoon, it came into focus. I spend my office hours reading and responding to email. The interactions are task oriented: explaining an assignment, clarifying a concept, receiving excuses for missed classes. Students send email asking specific questions that need answering; I respond to their inquiries via email. It's all very efficient. It's all very task oriented. It's why I'm “doing better, but feeling worse.”

Don't get me wrong, email is a wonderful tool. It allows me to interact with all of my students, not just the few who used to drop by my office. Students can send messages when it's convenient for them, be it 3:00 in the afternoon or 3:00 in the morning, and I'll receive them and respond (although probably not at 3 a.m.). Email is a powerful tool, but it has reduced my out-of-class interactions with students to merely task-oriented communication. Even if my response includes a “How are you doing?” students don't respond. If I asked the same question in my office, I would get a response — it may be cursory, but it is a response that I can follow up on. In other words, when a student comes to my office, I can show her I'm interested in her.

Another unanticipated consequence of my wired campus occurred when a student asked me for a reference supporting her application for an international fellowship. Her email request included information about the course and semester when she was in my class, and she also attached a copy of her resume plus a link to the organization offering the fellowship. But the only source of information I had about the student was my grade book. While all of the information she sent to me was helpful, it didn't provide me with a richer understanding of her. I knew she completed assignments on time, could write well, and did well on exams. I didn't know about her aspirations, whether or not she had a sense of humor, and couldn't comment on whether or not she had a positive attitude. My grade book used to be the last thing I looked at when I wrote a reference letter, now it is all I know about a student from two or three semesters ago.

The Impact

This trend is disturbing for several reasons, least important of which is that I find my job less satisfying than it used to be. More important is the fact that today's students are missing something significant in their college experience, and they don't even know they are missing it. Equally important, young faculty members are in the same situation.

There was a time when students got to know faculty members — not all of them, but at least one or two. They formed a relationship with a faculty member that added richness to the academic experience for both student and professor. In some cases the relationship lasted only until graduation, while in others it blossomed into a lifelong association. It enriched the lives of professors and enhanced the recollections and memories that alumni held of their college. I would assume that such relationships are reflected in increased involvement in alumni activities and contributions to annual fund-raising drives.

Today's college students don't know that there are opportunities available to them that can make their college years more rewarding. In many cases, students have a closer relationship with computer support staff sysadmin@mycollege.edu than with any professor. As students sit composing emails and worrying about getting into grad school or landing a first job, the very people who could help with advice or contacts are sitting alone in their offices responding to emails.

Young faculty are in a similar situation. Since they arrived on campus, email has been the way their students communicate with them. They've never known the pleasure of building a relationship with students. Their students will pass through their classes, graduate, and move on to careers. Without some personal relationship between teacher and student, there is little chance of students keeping in touch beyond graduation day. It happens too rarely, but having a former student remember you and thank you 20 years after she graduated is priceless. That doesn't happen if a relationship is based only on task-oriented communication. My assumption is that without the richness of relationships and long-term feedback, young faculty will burn out more quickly than us 30+ year veterans. The academy will experience a higher rate of turnover that will exacerbate the problems associated with an already aging faculty who are nearing retirement.

The Lessons

Technology is wonderful. It offers resources and capabilities that were not even dreamed of when I joined this noble profession. I am not in favor of going back to earlier times, but I do see the need to recognize our current situation and address the problems. There are things that can be tried to address this situation:

Better planning to ensure that there are fewer unanticipated consequences.
Adopting teaching strategies that foster building teacher-student relationships.
Providing incentives to encourage faculty to join in the informal life of campus.

Better planning. As the history of computers on campus gets longer, its impact on campus culture increases. In some cases, the increased impact is due to new areas where computers are implemented. But other cases surface over time and in ways both subtle and mysterious. Most institutions leave strategic planning for I.T. to heavy users and early adopters of technology. This collection of technically savvy individuals have a necessary, but narrow, perspective of the role technology plays and will play in the campus community. Daryl Nardick's research indicates that involving a broader spectrum of campus perspectives in strategic planning for I.T. enhances the quality of resulting plans.

Teaching strategies. Improving personal relationships between faculty and students requires improving the quality of faculty-student communication, not just the volume of it. That means creating opportunities for social as well as task-oriented communication. I've instituted a system called “feed forward folders,” a system wherein students are required to write me a note at the end of every class. I read the notes and deliver my written response to each in the next class. The notes run the gambit from questions about class to personal problems and concerns, from broad philosophical theories to point spreads on the weekend's professional football games. Another strategy is to require students to come to your office hours once or twice a semester. At least it ensures they know where your office is, and it gives you a chance to strike up a conversation.

The point is to have students and faculty interact outside the classroom, fostering the social aspect of communications.

Institutional incentives. If the institution sees building student-faculty relationships as important to its mission and goals, it should offer opportunities and incentives for faculty to be involved with students outside of class. These can be established for such things as faculty participating in intramural activities, acting as club or team sponsors, and entertaining students in their homes. Some colleges even provide faculty with living quarters in the residence halls. In all cases the point is to have students and faculty interact outside the classroom, fostering the social aspect of communications.

Not Just for “Techies”

Technology is overwhelming our campuses, influencing and altering just about every aspect of academic life. In many cases the impact has been planned, leading to more dynamic institutions, increased learning, and improved quality of life for faculty, staff, and students. Not all the consequences, however, have been anticipated and planned; not all of the consequences have been positive. In many instances we are all doing better, but feeling worse. It is now time to recognize the situation, to reflect on where we are, and then to take steps to maximize the benefits from past investments as well as ensure that future investments are optimized. The former requires a critical analysis of where we are relative to our already extensive I.T. investments, by asking these questions: What's different? What's better? What's worse? and What can be done about it? The latter requires looking more carefully into the future to better anticipate how new initiatives will change campus life.

It is no longer sufficient for the rest of us to either require or allow “techies” alone to develop plans and set priorities for I.T.

Both of these require involving additional perspectives from across campus. It is no longer sufficient for the rest of us to either require or allow “techies” alone to develop plans and set priorities for I.T. The full campus community from I.T. staff to Luddite faculty and staff need to be involved.

Frank W. Connolly is in his 21st, and final, year as a faculty member at American University in Washington, D.C. For seven of those years, he served as AU's Director of Academic Computing; prior to this, he was a faculty member at Montgomery College in Maryland for 14 years. At the conclusion of this academic year, he will devote full time to research and consulting on managing the unintended consequences and impact that technology has on institutional culture. He invites TQ readers to join him in his investigations by sending him your perspective and anecdotes of how you've experienced I.T.'s unintended consequences. His address is: Frank W. Connolly, American University, Washington, D.C. 20016 - or email him (of course) at: Frank@American.edu.

Artist credit: “Alone in the Forest” illustration by Frank Morris for TECHNOS.

See Sarah Irvine Belson's article, “Serendipity and the Teachable Moment.”